Author: Slingshot Team

Make Money with your Blog – Monetising Social Media through Sponsorship 25th October, 2011

Monetising social media is a tricky business. Although we are not experts in this (for social media experts, get in touch and we can pass on some recommendations!), we are however experts at sponsorship and utilising sponsorship to reap financial rewards for our clients.

These sponsorship tips can be utilised on a number of social media platforms, but more commonly can be found and developed on a blog. Freely available (see WordPress), blogs can not only drive conversations and showcase expertise, but can also provide the perfect platform to integrate new sponsorship revenues.

A great example of integrating sponsorship with social media can be seen with the DMA Email Marketing Blog. A fantastic source for everything email marketing and written by industry gurus, this blog is read globally and has become one of the prime resources for email marketers.

Here are some of our tips for integration:

Audience

Sponsorship is only possible if there is an audience. Fortunately, the DMA Email Blog had been going for some time and had a significant number of registrants already. This not only proved that there was appetite for the content, but also that any sponsors involved with the blog would be guaranteed to reach an audience.

Do not try and sell anything until you have a proven audience.

Assets

A number of integrated benefits were provided within the DMA Email Blog sponsorship proposal. These assets were tailored to reach the prospective sponsor’s objectives – the two most important included:

Opportunity to write guest blogs – providing industry expert positioning
Online display advertising – to promote the services or run competitions

Always think about your prospective sponsors before you look to build the assets into your sponsorship proposal. What might be something key for you may not be of value to a brand.

Cost

Pricing for sponsorship can vary, but should always have a value attributed to the tangible benefits you can offer. Tangible benefits typically include media rights, physical space (events), access to a database, etc. As the DMA already provided online advertising on their homepage and throughout the site, there was a base CPM rate for the audience. The sponsorship of the DMA Email Marketing Blog was based on this precedent.

In the case where you do not have anything to base your pricing on, refer to other advertising costs for online display in similar fields bearing in mind that your reach with a blog will be far less than with an online publication.

Measurement

Ensure that you have analytics to back up the cost and show the value to the sponsors you are aligning with. Without measurement in place, sponsorship will have no value and you will not be able to attribute ROI to the brand.

For more information on social media and sponsorship, make sure to check out the presentation Property Rights Owners Make Money with Social Media on SlideShare.

Premium Car Accessory Leader Thule Teams With What Car? 10th October, 2011

What Car? has signed Thule, the world’s premium leader in sport and utility transportation of car roof racks, bike and car category of the annual motoring Oscars – The What Car? Car of the Year Awards, to be held in January 2012.

Andrew Golby What Car? Publishing Director commented: “We are delighted to be working with Thule, who have joined us as a sponsor of the 2012 What Car? Awards. We spend a great deal of our time assessing family cars, and Thule’s products are an essential part of making big days out and annual holidays safe and enjoyable. It is very apt then, that they are now associated with the family car category of our Awards ceremony. Whichever vehicle wins on the night, there is sure to be a Thule accessory to enhance it even further.”

“Safety is paramount to parents and here at Thule we make it possible to put safety first whilst attaining an active lifestyle with your family in a stylish, easy to use format”, commented Peter Barker, UK General Manager.

The benefits of the What Car? Awards sponsorship deal includes alignment with the most authoritative and trusted brand in motoring. Brand positioning and awareness, extensive PR opportunities, networking and association to the awards via a multi-channel promotional campaign.

The What Car? Car of the year awards and acknowledged by many as the UK Motoring Oscars is the automotive industries best known and most influential awards ceremony and the awards themselves are much coveted by car makers both in the UK and overseas.

The event is attended by more than 1200 leading industry figureheads alongside the most influential motoring correspondents from the wider media.

What Car? reaches almost 3,000,000 consumers every month through the website, magazine or PR activity.

The event is to be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on the 12^th January with top class entertainment yet to be announced. Previous headline acts have included Jonathan Ross, Jimmy Carr, Al Murray and Jo Brand.

The sponsorship deal was brokered by Slingshot Sponsorship.

ABOUT What Car?

The What Car? stable includes the long established magazine, the award-winning website whatcar.com, What Car? TV, What Car? Mobile and What Car? Video – available online or as a video podcast.

Latest National Readership survey results indicate that 797,000 people read What Car? magazine every month. Two million unique consumers consult the What Car? website every month.

Haymarket Magazines is the United Kingdom’s largest independently owned publishing company with a portfolio of more than 150 titles, ranging from specialist consumer magazines to business titles and customer publications, published via wholly owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and under licence worldwide.

ABOUT The Thule Brand

The Thule brand was established in Sweden in 1942. Thule is a premium brand used globally for a wide assortment of products with a focus on solving the problem of how to bring equipment with you when using a car (roof racks, bike and water sport carriers, roof boxes). There are also other product areas such as accessories for recreational vehicles, trailers for active life (horses, boats, etc), snow chains and luggage.

Thule is the largest brand in the Thule Group. With its origins in Sweden, Thule is now a truly global brand.

In 1942, Thule was founded by the Thulin family, when Erik Thulin, a true lover of the outdoors, put the Thule name on a Pike Trap that he designed and began selling to the fisherman of Scandinavia. It wasn’t long before he added other practical things to his company’s portfolio. Business boomed, gaining profitably year after year.

By the 1960s, the company began to concentrate its business on car-related product

The Thulin family sold Thule to the publicly listed company Eldon in 1979. It continued to grow both organically and through acquisitions (trailers and rooftop box manufacturing), and Thule has been in growth mode ever since. New markets have been opened, product categories have been launched and several companies have joined.s, and before long the first roof rack was born. New product categories were added in the 1970s and new markets were opened worldwide (e.g. US, Japan).

In 2004, the Thule Group acquired Italian snow chain manufacturer König. An ensuing close collaboration resulted in a series of Thule branded snow chains for passenger cars. A year later, in 2005, RV Accessories company Omnistor was added to the Thule Group portfolio and integrated with Thule. By acquiring towing systems company Brink in 2006, Thule Group added yet another product range to its portfolio. This integration has resulted in a series of towbars and bike carrier solutions. Since 2007, Case Logic has been part of Thule Group. As a consequence of the collaboration between Thule and business area Carry Solutions, a range of Thule branded luggage, bags and cases was launched in 2010.

5 Tips to Sponsoring an Email Marketing Event 28th September, 2011

Sponsorship is a fantastic way for email marketers to stand out from their competitors. If done strategically, sponsorship can not only generate significant leads, but can also provide a platform to showcase expertise and present client testimonials. In such a small market, sponsorship can be one of the most cost-effective ways to differentiate an email service provider.

Sponsorship Options for Email Service Providers

There are a number of sponsorship opportunities for ESPs in a range of budgets. From large exhibitions such as Ad:Tech and Marketing Week’s Online Marketing Show to smaller intimate breakfast sessions with the DMA Email Marketing Council and online webinars, how can you be sure you are not only choosing the best sponsorship opportunity, but also making the most of it?

In order to help you leverage your potential opportunities, there are a few things to consider:

1. Do you even need to sponsor this event?

Sponsorship is a great way to access an audience and help build affiliation. However, there are other ways to do this through marketing and just simply by attending the event in question with a couple of good sales people who can work the room.

But if your competitors are also attending the same events, then sponsorship is a great way to stand out from the crowd.
Based on the audience you are targeting, options can include:

If the audience you are trying to reach is not familiar with your brand, I’d recommend exclusive sponsorship of the event ensuring that you also receive an opportunity to speak and present what you do best.
If you want to create loyalty with an audience who is familiar with you, then consider sponsoring an element of the event that you are trying to target and align new product launches.
To reposition your brand, look at alternative opportunities, such as sponsoring the photo booth or after party. This can help reposition an otherwise ‘dull’ brand as an engaging and approachable one.

2. How much?

Ensure you take into account everything that is required to make the most of any event that you sponsor. Your budget should not just include the cost of purchasing the sponsorship rights, but also any additional activation costs to make sure that your sponsorship is effective.

Activations can include:

Prizes or promotions on the day
Communications you want to send out to your current clients about your sponsorship
Secondary leverage options such as posters to promote your sponsorship
Follow up activity on those people you met through your sponsorship

3. Is your audience going to be there?

The best way to identify whether the audience you want to reach will be attending the event you wish to sponsor is to gather as much information about previous delegates. Although the lists won’t be identical, they should provide you with enough information on the level of delegate. Specifically ensure that the audience isn’t filled with organising staff and/or partners.

The second way to ensure that the audience you want to reach will be at the event is to invite them yourself. As a sponsor, you should ensure you receive a number of complimentary tickets to your sponsored event and co-ordinate those invitations with your sales team to set up an engagement programme. These invitations can also be used to further promote your sponsorship of the event helping to reinforce your affiliation with your current clients.

In some instances you can also request that the organiser invite specific brands you’d like to target – it never hurts to ask.

4. SHOUT about it

Sponsorship helps build fan loyalty with your brand and fans are people we all want on our side. If you aren’t telling people about your sponsorship then you aren’t getting the most out of the inherent rights that you’ve purchased – and best of all it doesn’t need to cost you a thing!

Depending on the sponsorship, it can and should be reflected in your client and prospect communications. These can include:

Email signatures
Social networks
Blogs
Email campaigns
Promotions
Your reception area
Giveaways
Website

5. Get them working for you!

Typically the event will have its own PR team who will be trying to promote the event you are sponsoring. Set up a meeting or at the very least send them your press kit so they can include your messaging whenever possible. Find out about their communication and marketing schedule and find ways of linking in with it. Typically providing a prize tends to lend itself well to being included with communications as the organisers also want to add value to their delegates.

Making sure that you really ‘work’ your sponsorship rights can add significant value over and above the rights that you have purchased with your sponsored event. Most of these tips can be done with little or no cost, but just make sure you have the resources to make your sponsorship truly work for you!

This blog was originally posted on the DMA Email Marketing Blog. For more email marketing articles, make sure to register here.

Do Social Media Benefits Really Benefit Sponsors? 15th September, 2011

Social media has not only changed the way an audience can interact with a sponsorship property, but also with how they can interact with the sponsors of that property and vice versa. Without fully understanding social media for the organisation in question, it would be impossible to try and deliver value to a sponsor associated.

Here are some top tips and questions to ask yourself before you consider integrating sponsorship benefits within your sponsorship proposal.

Do You Have an Online Audience?

Many sponsorship proposals include social media activation with their audience for prospective sponsors; however, this is typically even before they’ve even set up the account. Many rights owners do not realise that it can take a significant amount of resource to develop and manage social networks so make time to do your research before you promise brands something you aren’t able to deliver at the point of signing the contract.

The benefit of social media is that it is instantaneous, but if you haven’t developed your social network before you offer the rights over to a sponsor, you aren’t offering much of anything.

Is Your Social Network Engaged?

Once you’ve built your social network, you need to ensure that the users are engaged with your content. If you don’t have an engaged audience then there is no benefit to a sponsor of your property because their message will be falling on deaf ears.

5 Tips to Creating Engaging Content:

Be relevant
Provide insight
Offer competitions or money-can’t buy benefits for engaging with you
Provide exclusive content they can’t find anywhere else
If possible, try to be genuinely funny

Does Your Social Network Want to Hear From Your Sponsors?

Your network is important and needs to be treated with care. Do not sign them up and then bombard them with messages that they do not want to hear. This rings true for any and all communication, but especially with social media as it far easier to individuals to block messages online than it is through the post.

Make sure to listen to your audience and provide them content that they find valuable. As long as your sponsor’s messages fall in line with these guidelines you can ensure that you are truly delivering the benefits you are offering.

To connect with Slingshot’s social networks sign up to our Blog or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

What Can I Sell? Top 5 Tips to Uncover Sponsorship Assets 10th August, 2011

We have been doing a lot of Slingshot Sponsorship Boot Camps recently to gear up for the start of September. As such, I thought I’d start a blog series following what we discuss and some tips to think about when constructing your own sponsorship proposals.

Assets are typically a problem area for rights holders. Being submersed in their own product, sometimes it’s difficult to uncover something that you see on a daily basis, so these top tips and questions should help you uncover opportunities you haven’t thought of yet!

1. What communication tools do I have?

Although I am not a fan of badging (plastering logos on any and everything you have), communication to your audience is what the sponsor is after so you need to look at all opportunities to integrate sponsors within those communications, although bearing in mind that engaging communications are better than logos. Communication can include everything from:

Email newsletters (to read more on how, check out my blog post on the DMA Email Blog: Email Sponsorship: How to do it and why?)
Printed communications
Promotional advertisements
Online display
Events

2. Who are your super stars?

Do you have anyone within your company or anyone your company works with that could potentially be an asset to a brand? If so, and they are willing, you could work with these leaders to provide benefits to your sponsor by speaking at their events or promoting their brand. Some ideas of unusual super stars could be:

Talent or brand ambassadors
Politicians
Highly successful CEOs who could act as mentors/speakers
Musicians/artists

3. Social media

If you are using social media and have a regular engagement with your audience, this is a great platform for brands to run competitions or promotions. Typically the audience is younger and more technology friendly so keep the audience in mind when including social media assets within your sponsorship offering. Social media is a great way for you to add value to a sponsor without much cost, but don’t underestimate the importance of having a ‘working’ social network. Just tweeting or posting competitions is not enough – you must have a social media strategy which is engaging, both for your property and also for your sponsors. More about how to integrate sponsorship with social media, read my guest blog post on Content and Motion’s Blog Social Media & Sponsorship: Can Facebook & YouTube Ever Become Co-brandable Assets for Brands?

4. Partnerships: are there other partnerships that you can leverage for your sponsors?

Media partnerships can be great opportunities to provide content for promotion. When this works well and everyone is working together these partnerships can be extremely successful. Integrating these opportunities for your sponsors can add significant value and should be considered, especially if your property does not yet have a large audience.

5. Extras

Any additional events that you could include, not only add value to the sponsor, but also to your property. Extras can include providing a Sponsors Lunch or Sponsor’s VIP Reception. These types of events allow sponsors to network with each other and often uncover other partnership opportunities that can be built around your property through brainstorming synergies. Especially if these extra events are timed so they coincide with a lull in your marketing schedule, they provide an added opportunity for you to continue building your relationship with your sponsor throughout the year.

Slingshot Sponsorship strikes Gold at the Corporate Engagement Awards 20th July, 2011

Slingshot Sponsorship has been recognised at the inaugural Corporate Engagement Awards, which was held in London on July 19^th, 2011.

The sponsorship agency, which launched in 2010, collected two Gold Awards and two Silver Awards for their corporate partnership programme with The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and credit and business information specialist Equifax.

Slingshot picked up the Gold Awards in the Best execution of a corporate sponsorship activity and Best collaborative approach categories, and Silver Awards in the Best communication of a corporate sponsorship activity and Best corporate sponsorship to help raise brand awareness categories. Complete shortlist here.

Jackie Fast, Managing Director of Slingshot Sponsorship, said:

Having only launched one year ago it is a huge achievement to be up there with companies such as RBS, The Princes Trust, and BT. We are absolutely thrilled to take home so many awards proving our innovative approach to sponsorship for rights owners is being recognised within the industry and gets results for our clients.

Commenting on the DMA’s success, Mike Lordan, chief of operations for the DMA, said:

The partnership between the DMA and Equifax has been extremely fruitful, helping us to raise awareness and understanding of sound data best practice. Winning these awards highlights what can be achieved by two organisations working in close collaboration.

The Corporate Engagement Awards, organised by Communicate Magazine, are the only European benchmark of best practice in all aspects of the corporate partnership & sponsorship process. They provide an opportunity for staff, companies, agencies and beneficiaries alike, to see their efforts recognised and to celebrate excellence in their collaborative projects. Entries by contenders in each of the 16 categories were judged on the three criteria of strategy, execution and outcome.

Cobra to Sponsor 2012 What Car? Awards 28th June, 2011

Cobra, a leader in the provision of security and safety solutions for the automotive industry, has announced that is to once again sponsor the prestigious What Car? Awards. The company will be sponsoring the performance and luxury award categories at next year’s event, to be held at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London on January 12, 2012.

Cobra has over 35 years experience partnering many of the world’s most recognised vehicle manufacturers, developing bespoke solutions for both factory and after market installation on a global level.

Cobra offers a vast number of products and solutions and is at the forefront of electronic and telematics systems technology for the automotive industry. Cobra’s range includes alarms and immobilisers, parking sensors, in-car communications, entertainment solutions and GPS stolen vehicle tracking systems.

Managing director of Cobra UK, Andrew Smith, said: “With over 35 years experience working at the top level of this industry, we are proud to be teaming up with What Car? to sponsor the performance and luxury categories at the UK motoring Oscars.”

Through its CobraTrak and NavTrak brands, Cobra is the European market leader for Stolen Vehicle Tracking and the only approved supplier to: Audi, Bentley, Ferrari, Infiniti, Lamborghini, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz Trucks, Nissan, Porsche, Renault and Tesla. Cobra offers fully integrated stolen vehicle tracking services across 36 European countries, Russia and South Africa.

“Both award categories keep us front of mind with our existing and potential prestige car manufacturer partners, as a premium supplier of high end safety and security solutions to the automotive industry,” continues Smith.

Cobra also provides a range of telematics solutions to vehicle manufacturers, fleets, logistics providers and insurance companies.

Andrew Golby, What Car? publishing director, said: “We are delighted to be working with Cobra again, who return for a second year. Plans for next year’s event are well underway, and we are excited to have an opportunity to further develop the partnership.”

The What Car? Car of the Year Awards are acknowledged by many as the UK motoring Oscars. The event is the automotive industry’s best-known and most influential awards ceremony and the awards are coveted by car makers both in the UK and overseas. The event is attended by more than 1200 leading industry figureheads alongside many of the most influential motoring correspondents in the UK.

The sponsorship deal was secured by Slingshot Sponsorship.

ABOUT WHAT CAR?

The What Car? stable includes the long-established magazine, the award-winning website whatcar.com, What Car? TV, What Car? Mobile and What Car? Video – available online or as a video podcast.

Latest National Readership survey results indicate that 797,000 people read What Car? magazine every month, while two million consumers consult the What Car? website every month.

What Car? is owned by Haymarket Magazines, the UK’s largest independently owned publishing company with a portfolio of more than 150 titles, ranging from specialist consumer magazines to business titles and customer publications, published via wholly owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and under licence worldwide.

ABOUT COBRA

A leader in the provision of security and safety solutions for the automotive industry, Cobra is a Tier One partner to the main European and Asian car, commercial vehicle and motorcycle manufacturers, developing bespoke solutions for both factory and aftermarket installation. The company has a worldwide network of around 40 local commercial partners.

A pioneer of vehicle electronic solutions and at the forefront of vehicle security and safety technology, Cobra has been providing vehicle manufacturers with tried and tested products for line-fit since the 1970s.

Cobra’s products include Cobra Alarms and Immobilisers, Cobra Parking Sensors, CobraTrak Stolen Vehicle Tracking, In-car DVD systems, Rear View Reversing Cameras and Monitors, Bluetooth® Handsfree Systems, Cruise Control and Speed Limiters.

Cobra provides a range of telematics solutions to fleets, vehicle manufacturers, logistics providers and insurance companies. Cobra already provides the telematics technology for the Coverbox pay as you drive insurance policy, and the Co-Operative is using it to power its Young Driver Insurance.

Happy Birthday Slingshot: Tips & reflections on starting a sponsorship agency 14th June, 2011

We’ve just had our first birthday – a very big moment for us all!

While waiting for our bottles of champagne to arrive on the table at our birthday party celebration, I thought about the past year and what I could have done better/differently through Year 1. We’ve had many successes – our most recent being shortlisted for four awards at the upcoming Corporate Engagement Awards as well as a few hiccups, but all in all it’s been such a fantastic year and I can’t wait to start the next one.

Throughout the year, I am constantly asked how I made the leap and so I thought I’d jot down some of my own tips/experiences as a birthday gift to all those thinking about starting up a sponsorship agency (or any service based business for that matter).

TIP 1: Understand your agency’s value proposition

Without a full understanding of what your business does, it’s going to be next to impossible to explain, let alone convince others to buy into your service. Clearly identifying what it is you do, who you’d like to work with, and knowing what you can’t/won’t do is incredibly important. Do your research and find out what else is out there and what your competitive edge is. And then, as a good friend and someone I regularly go to for business advice said, “Make sure you can explain all this in an elevator between the ground floor and the arriving on the first floor or else forget it.”

Our value proposition in plain English: We build/create things to make money.

More eloquently put, Slingshot identifies opportunities in businesses that new revenue streams such as sponsorship can be developed without having to change the direction or core focus of the business. This creates partnerships and helps generate revenue for activity that is already being resourced. It also opens up new audiences for your business to reach.

TIP 2: Use a cash flow

The number one failing of a business is not having enough cash flow. Not only understanding how to put one together, but also using it to identify how to develop and grow your business moving forward.

With an educational background in finance, I thought I understood this fairly well, but a textbook understanding of cash flow and how it actually relates to your business turn out to be very different concepts when put into practice. I’d highly recommend speaking to someone who has done it before and get them to help you tailor your cash flow to reflect your business objectives.

TIP 3: Shout about what makes you unique

If you are considering starting out on your own, I am assuming you already know what will make you different than your competitors. If you don’t know, then it might be worth reconsidering whether or not you should be going it alone.
When you do know what you do better than the next guy, make sure to tell everyone you know. This can be through your website, word of mouth, articles, profiles, credentials, your company blog and actively using social media such as Twitter. Your unique selling point won’t ensure you’ll land every client that comes along, but it will help you get your foot in the door.

TIP 4: Outsource

Working until the wee hours of every night for the past year has not been my idea of fun, but I did anticipate it and assumed it was part of starting your own business. However it did takes its toll, especially on tasks that I wasn’t particularly good at – such as invoicing and filing. I finally made the decision to outsource some of our non-core activities and it has made a world of difference – allowing me to work on what I do best – being creative and building relationships between brands.

TIP 5: Love what you do

It is not always easy working in sponsorship and there can be a lot of rejection – both from prospective clients as well as prospective sponsors for projects you are involved with. If you don’t love what you do, then you won’t make it past the long hours and what seems like an extraordinary amount of copywriting that I never knew existed (website, blog, articles, emails…) to find yourself sitting in the VIP room at the Hammersmith Apollo realising that you helped build this. And hopefully in a month’s time admiring those first few awards in our office’s reception!

Make sure to keep track of our progress in Year 2, by signing up to our weekly eNewsletter & Facebook page.

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